Firstly, check out the post that Deanna wrote on her blog about designing characters for my film!The cake is not too much to chew, I mean I've taken on too much work. Since my last post I had a birthday! That picture above is a the last piece of chocolate cake Steve and I baked.

I've continued to kill myself with roughing out backgrounds since my last post. Since then I've concentrated on getting the rough kitchen shots out the door. The one I just finished today I ended up redoing 3 times after the first go and I think it's finally right. Sucks doing one background 4 times. Oh well.

I realise I have taken on too much, I always do, (but I don't like to admit that). I am making the film I want to make, but it is just taking a long time. I guess that's not really so bad... Sometimes art takes awhile. But next time I make a short film... I may just skip the bgs or have them be extremely simple. (Ha, I say that now.) I'd rather be animating. I actually love writing, boarding, timing the leica, animating, producing and directing. But drawing backgrounds... I don't mind, it's just not my favorite. Actually I've started enjoying drawing up the bg's more as I've been going along which was a surprise. It's interesting and satisfying to encompass nearly every department. I make all the creative descisions regarding the cutting, timing, composition and animation. (Being your own boss is pretty cool but also can be scary.) And then when I am working on a bg, I need to go back and forth between the leica and looking at the size of the characters and consider what they are doing. Revisions that have to go between departments and levels of approval in a studio can be frustrating.

I actually love to paint too! I used to paint a lot more especially when I was in highschool and in college. I don't think I suck at it either. I mostly preferred to paint "organic" subjects though, (as compared to buildings and vehicle, things that fill out landscapes. I painted people, plants, food, fabric, clothing, objects...

A great inspiration for me is listening to music. I love using itunes and youtube to find new artists and having a stream of music or podcasts is a great fuel. I've recently discovered a few artists I like, Dragonette, Annie and Porcelain Black.

I actually just formed an idea for an animated feature the other day. (gulp) I'd LOVE to get a team together in Canada and produce a feature. Recently that desire was reignited and I started thinking of feature ideas. There is no plot, fully formed characters or setting... but I do have an idea that I love. I'd like to write a big post on ideas sometime. People always seem to be asking how to come up with ideas and companies are desperate for fresh ones. I have my own way of coming up with ideas and harnessing them.

Below: me on the day I went out for a birthday dinner. My expression seems a little crazed, eh? I tried a look of sparkly white eyeshadow all around my eyes with no eyeliner or mascara. Kind of a La Roux type look. It looked cool in the mirror.